What is wrong with humans who treat animals as commodities or things?? This article will leave you heart sick. Please don't turn a blind eye to these issues. "Man's best friend" deserves to be defended and protected. Read. Research. Learn. Pass it On.

READ THE FULL STORY by Care2 writer Keegan K. (photo is from Keegan's article)This is an excerpt .....Mike went on to describe the training practices of mushers on their dogs. Many carried clubs in order to beat unruly dogs back into line. Mike had witnessed dogs beaten to death with shovels and tree branches for not following commands. He had been privy to reliable stories of dogs being shot while hooked up in the team for not pulling hard enough and how the musher allowed the rest of the team to drag their companions’ lifeless bodies home to show what happens when you don't pull. He had uncovered mass graves at some of the top racing kennels where thousands of dogs had been killed and buried simply because the pads on their feet weren't black.He spoke of the breeding of sled dogs and how only a tiny percentage of the puppies born each year will be allowed to live. The vast majority will be killed, usually by drowning, because of the tiniest imperfection in their coat or nose. He spoke of dogs killed because they no longer were as fast as they once were, or killed just to make room for new dogs.

He had seen countless dogs die in races by over competitive mushers who simply ran their dogs to death in order to win a prize.

The world he described sounded and looked nothing like the stories I had been told or the Disney films I had seen. The world of dog mushing sounded like every other animal exploiting industry I knew of and I was sickened by it.

Anatomy of a Tiger - Learn about the very real threat to these beautiful creatures

"The animals of the world exist for their own reasons. They were not made for humans any more than black people were made for white, or women created for men." ~Alice WalkerThe source of the quote is Walker's preface to Marjorie Spiegel's 1988 book, "The Dreaded Comparison" . Her next sentence was, "This is the gist of Ms. Spiegel's cogent, humane and astute argument, and it is sound."